In honor of wifey’s big day (and it being a rainy couple of days down here in Carolina) I thought it was time to check in with some tunes, in this case focusing on some solid albums that’ve celebrated anniversaries recently. Four of them were released in 2001 — within 6-8 weeks of each other no less — but their sounds are as different and distinct as their disparate geographies and subsequent trajectories. Of those, one is a more melancholic extension of the band’s typical sound, as understated and unassuming as their Idaho origins. One is an over-the-top extension of their previous efforts, perfecting the bombastic fusion of rock and camp that only seems to originate from its home island. One is a mix of electronic and punk cool unexpected for its Omaha origins. And the other is a return to the garage, the so-called saviors of rock that created a worldwide scene, one that cast ripples well beyond the streets of their emblematic NY home.
This quartet is bookended by a pair of California albums — one from five years prior, the latter five years later — each representative of different elements of that terrain — the former the skateboarding/surf punks that bask in the sunshine, the latter the sullen stoners that slink through the shade. All six are worth another look, as two-thirds of them represent the bands’ best efforts to date — some riding them to stardom (however briefly for a few), others never quite reaping the success they arguably deserve. So as Mad Dog looks forward to a new decade, we’ll look back at some of the albums that got her to this point.
We’ll start with the oldest, the one from the skaters in the sun, and Sublime’s self-titled third album, which turns 25 this year. Released a couple months after the death of frontman Bradley Nowell, it would turn out to be the band’s biggest (but not their best, in my opinion) album, spawning a number of whopper singles that dominated MTV for months.
For those too young to remember, this was back when MTV was huge and (sorta) played videos, so having videos on regular rotation meant a whole lot more than it does today. (If they even still play videos — is that a thing?) I remember constantly seeing “Santeria,” “Wrong Way,” and the monster “What I Got” on the TV as I got ready for (and then went to) college that year, the songs inextricably infusing themselves into the airstream. Despite that ubiquity, this was not the Sublime album on endless repeat for me that summer — that honor goes to their debut album (still my favorite), which we used to listen to ENDLESSLY in Skater Scott’s dorm room, surrounded by black lights and Absolut bottles filled with different colored highlighters.
The number of times the RA came by to tell us to turn that album down closely mirrored the number of days in the week, but this album got its fair share of the blame back then, too. Its mix of the band’s punk/reggae fusion was rounded out by the first-time addition of hip hop elements, which ended up working really well. (There was always name-checking prior to this point, but this time the band incorporated scratching and sampling in a way they hadn’t done before, which was unique at the time.)
Besides the big singles, the album had several deep cuts that were equally infectious — songs like the LA riots retrospective “April 29, 1992 (Miami)” and the more downtrodden “Pawn Shop,” the more traditional dub-styled “Caress me Down” and “Garden Grove,” and the closer “Doin Time” (one of the aforementioned experiments with hip hop), which is still one of my favorites.
After having covered Toots and the Maytals on their debut, dropping a partial Gershwin cover at the end of the album was an interesting statement for this latter track, one we sadly never got to see where it was headed. The unexpected lyrical inspiration, the pairing with hip hop samples and scratching — it was such a curious (but winning) mixture, it’s a shame they didn’t get to explore that sound further on subsequent albums. I’ll still get that chorus stuck in my head from time to time (and I’ve actually heard it twice this week on our trip to Carolina) so know others still hear the echoes too. See what you think — give it a listen here:
We’ll stay in chronological order, fast forwarding to the first of the new millennium quartet and an album that channeled some of the new century’s uncertainties and paired them with bitter, sometimes seething lyrics, elevating each to the stratosphere with enormous levels of glammy bombast. I’m referring to the second album from British band Muse, Origin of Symmetry, an album that turns 20 this month and one that cemented the band’s direction for the next ten years (for better and often worse).
Stylistically it’s not a tremendous departure from their debut album, Showbiz — that one found frontman Matt Bellamy exploring his inner Thom Yorke, playing plaintive ballads on the piano, nursing his wounded heart in a melodic, lovely falsetto, while balancing that with some slick guitar-based songs that sound like early examples of the aforementioned’s Radiohead. This album — recorded two years after that debut — found Bellamy still apparently hurting, that pain having festered in the intervening years and now being weaponized with some absolutely massive riffs and melodies, as if each song’s hooks and shredding was an attempt to bludgeon back the loss and the ultimate source of suffering.
It’s tough to tell if he succeeded if that was the case, but just by listening as an outsider he had to have come pretty damn close because this album is packed with huge songs, haymakers that swing with barely contained abandon in an attempt to knock your head off. Bellamy reportedly re-immersed himself in Rachmaninoff’s music prior to this recording, and whether true or not you can hear some of that composer’s unbridled power in the songs’ structures and shifts.
Tracks like “New Born,” “Bliss,” “Plug in Baby,” and “Darkshines” are all juggernauts, unloading monumental riffs one after the other. Same for “Space Dementia…” “Hyper Music…” “Citizen Erased…” It’s actually probably easier to highlight the ones that DIDN’T try to flatten you into paste (“Screenager” and the aptly (ironically?) named “Megalomania” being the sole two.) In subsequent albums Bellamy’ would go too far down the trippy, nonsensical lyrical and over-the-top theatrical path (their third album Absolution would mostly hold it together, but beyond that it’s been a rapid descent into overblown pomposity), but they’ve never been as potent as they were here.
I remember finding this in my frequent Napster hunts at the time, having really enjoyed the first album (being a similarly lovelorn sad sack who loved Radiohead) and being blown back by the sheer volume and power on display here. At first I thought I must’ve found some early demos or something because the songs were SO loud — they rattled my sh#$ty little computer speakers and came out sounding all distorted. I pictured the little color bars on the equalizer in the studio staying pegged in the red, the speakers starting to smoke from the punishment while the engineers scrambled to contain the impending blaze. Once I started to listen to the lyrics, though, I realized it was deliberate — the raw power of the riffage was meant to compound the anger and betrayal Bellamy sang about, obliterating everything in its path.
Add to that the sheer theatricality of it all, poured over the entire dish like a hearty helping of country gravy. As I mentioned before, there’s something unique about the over-the-top showmanship that comes from UK acts — Elton John, Queen, T Rex, Roxy Music, etc — it’s so unabashed and unapologetic you can’t help but succumb to it. In less skilled hands it can come across as oppressive and distracting (like said gravy), but this time Bellamy keeps it calibrated. And so what on paper probably shouldn’t work somehow does, undeniably enhanced by the audacious theatrics.
Listen to a track like “Micro Cuts,” for example — there’s no rational reason that song should work, with Bellamy’s falsetto going fully operatic, nine miles over his already Olympic-level high bar by the end — and yet damn if you don’t find yourself responding once the riffs kick in. It may not make logical sense, but it sure works.
This album remains a top to bottom banger for those days when you just don’t care about the judging eyes and ears of outsiders — you want it loud and slightly silly, in all its heavy handed wonder. Give the Chili Peppers-sounding “Hyper Music” a listen here:
Next up in the early aughts quartet is the fifth album from Idaho guitar god Doug Martsch and the beloved Built to Spill, Ancient Melodies of the Future. As down to earth and unassuming as the previous album was bombastic and interstellar, this album was an extension of the band’s perfected sound to this point – seemingly effortless guitar wizardry, endearing lyrics, and winning melodies, performed by guys who seem more like mechanics or roadies than racecar drivers or the actual stars of the show.
This complete lack of pretension is one of the hallmarks of the band, its music as unadorned and stripped to its essential elements as its home state’s ubiquitous potato. (It never ceases to amaze me watching these guys setting up/tearing down their own gear at shows — the pinnacle being at one festival show where they got done a few minutes early, so sat down cross-legged on stage and pulled their laptops/phones out of their backpacks to kill some time. ON STAGE. Just catching up on correspondence and surfing the news… Once their set time came they popped up, stuck their tech back in their bags and started to play. “Hi! We’re Built to Spill and we’re going to play some songs for you.”)
As noted in the article, this album found the band coming off two near-perfect albums in a row — 1997’s major label debut Perfect From Now On and 1999’s Keep it Like a Secret — and they’d been garnering well-deserved reviews since that point. They’d also been touring rather relentlessly, so by the time 2001’s Ancient Melodies came around there was an element of fatigue audible in the music that hadn’t been there before.
One of the earliest memories I have of the album was driving around with my buddy and his then new girlfriend (now wife). It was too early in the morning (on a Saturday no less), we were hungover and desperately in need of coffee and food, and I’d put this on for the drive, having been released a few weeks prior. Before we got very far she made us turn it off because she said it sounded like she felt — “why are they playing so SLOW?” — and it wasn’t until she said that that I was able to hear what she was feeling.
The first four songs on the album take the band’s normally laid back vibe and push it even further, streeeeeeeeeetching the tempo like cooling lava flows. (“The Host” being a particularly slow-moving example.) They’re still great songs once you adjust (“Strange” maintains the band’s unblemished record of fantastic opening tracks), but packed one after the other it can make you feel a bit like you’re stuck in the mud.
In hindsight it makes you wonder if this was just the overall weariness creeping into the recording sessions a little and some unguarded moments of fatigue that the band decided to leave in rather than re-record. Martsch mentioned a sense of being on autopilot in interviews at the time and after this album’s release they went on a bit of a hiatus — he recorded and toured for his solo album and the band didn’t come back for another five years (their longest gap at the time) — a lifetime for a band used to releasing an album every two years to that point.
I remember being too tired to fight it at the time, but I knew if she’d been able to wait a little bit longer she would have been treated to one of the best back halves of an album the band has. They shake off the sluggishness by the fifth song (the aptly named “Trimmed and Burning”), which marks the start of an uptempo trio of winners with “Happiness” and the blazing “Don’t Try.” They then shift into one of the sweetest trilogies in the band’s catalog — the blissed out love songs “You Are,” “Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss,” and “The Weather,” which sport either some of Martsch’s most sincere lines (“I know you’re making accidents and stars for everyone — you’re amazing, half of them won’t know until you’re gone” from “Miss” and “as long as it’s talking with you, talk of the weather will do” from the latter) or some of his most knee-buckling melodies (the trilogy’s opener).
Ancient Melodies marks the end of a pretty epic trilogy of albums — their return five years later marked a fiery return to their more rocking side — but for now this slightly sleepy, slightly erratic album would have to tide fans over. It’s got some of my favorites (despite the fussing about its slower start) and has held up well in the intervening 20 years. Check out that blissed out gem from the closing trilogy, “You Are” here:
Up next in the parade of 20 year old albums is the one that changed everything — at least for the next generation of bands. It was The Big Bang of indie, the one that set off an entire scene and a feeding frenzy by labels frantic to find the Next Big Thing. I’m talking of course about the Strokes’ debut album, the instant classic Is This It. There’s been oodles of writeups about this band over the years and this album in particular, so I won’t try to outdo them as I don’t have new insights or interviews to add to that reporting. I’ll merely recommend one of my favorites (Lizzy Goodman’s outstanding Meet Me in the Bathroom) and speak of my personal recollections of its impact, as I still remember how thrilling a find it first was.
I was away at school, as mentioned above, and part of my nightly ritual was hunting music I couldn’t get or listen to at the pretty decent record shops on campus. Rare concerts and bootlegs, B-sides from singles not released in this country, and albums big in other countries that I’d never heard of here. This latter category was how I found the Strokes, as I would read the breathless reviews in the British press and then try to find anything I could listen to from this band that would make grown adults this rabid and deranged.
After a while I managed to find both the Modern Age EP and an advance copy of this album and I remember them bowling me over — they hit in a way I remember thinking was anomalous at the time, a sensation that has only grown more rare in the years since. The first thing I remember was how raw it sounded — not warped and distorted like albums from the Stooges, for example (or Muse above), but still decidedly unpolished compared to most of the stuff you’d hear at the time.
From frontman Julian Casablancas’ mumbled lyrics to their shaggy, ramshackle appearance, it was clear this band just did not give a F#$K. About you, or frankly anyone for that matter. And yet the melodies were so good, the hooks so strong, the playing so sharp, it belied that ZFG attitude.
Even on those rough early outings, these guys were TIGHT. I remember the twinned guitar parts swirling around each other with mind-melting precision, avoiding disastrous collisions with inexplicable repetition. Every song was like a sortie from those early world wars where an endless array of things were flying around the sky — strafing solos, barrages of riffs, little lyrical parts popping off nearby that would tear through the fuselage (ie your skull) and yet somehow not end in a ball of flame and debris.
They did it over and over. Every track on the album was like this, this amazing dance of dogfighting precision and ragged sheen. It was irresistible — and still is. Listening to it 20 years later it’s still an amazing album — in spite of the avalanche of hype it unleashed and the global wave of knockoffs it created. (And the fact the band would never be as good again — although they came closer than ever on that sophomore slump-busting Room on Fire.)
I remember seeing them play the album live at an old fur factory that had been converted into this massive multi-floor club, one normally geared towards DJ sets and electronic acts, but that night was hosting these upstart New Yorkers set to dominate the world. The band had to play where the DJ booth normally was, so I remember them hovering high above the audience, a good 10-15’ over the tallest guy’s head in the crowd, and it being a packed, humid mass. (Although I’m sure age has heightened that distance, it was definitely one of the weirdest setups I’ve ever seen at a show.) Despite the venue they still destroyed, ripping through their set at a sprinter’s pace and leaving as fast as they’d arrived, like some giant pigeons that momentarily landed in the rafters before flying off again in a blur of feathers.
I’ve still got the original CD-R I burned of those tracks somewhere, too — all these years and moves later, it still feels like a found treasure I’m reluctant to part with. It included the omitted “NYC Cops,” which has yet to appear on a US version, but is an integral part to the overall album and was a rawer (and I’d argue more urgent) listen than the re-recorded US version of the album that came out a little bit later. Regardless of which one you listen to, though, this is one of the rare instances where the thing actually lives up to the hype — even after two decades of listening.
You really can’t go wrong no matter which song you pick, but for me “Soma” was always one of the brain-melters — endlessly infectious with those immaculate guitar parts dancing with each other. Give it a listen here:
The closer of the quartet comes from a band that benefited from the chaos resulting from the previous band’s arrival and its otherworldly pull. As described in Lizzy Goodman’s book (and potentially remembered by those who are OAF like me) New York became the center of the universe in 2001 — in part because of the horrors of 9/11 and the outpouring of support that came with it, but also to a lesser extent because of the aforementioned band and their arrival on (/creation of) the scene.
The rush to find the next version of that band was an all out arms race for the labels — the Southern Strokes, The Euro Strokes. The Australian Strokes. The Kazakh Ministry of Pretty Sound Strokes. That frenzy to find The Next Big Thing spilled over to bands that didn’t sound like the Strokes, too, as labels tried to identify the next wave to ride if/when the current one was exhausted. Enter bands like The Faint, a band from Omaha (somewhere in middle America) whose previous two albums had been below the radar affairs, but their third got caught up in the breathless hype machine that was working non-stop at the time, offering endless interpolations of the Strokes’ album title. (“Is this it? Is this it? THIS is it…”)
Despite the previous two outings and the modest number of units they’d sold, this album — the excellent Danse Macabre — was heralded as an event. And for this one album, the band lived up to that acclaim. They grabbed that rocket and rode it as high as it would take them, before gradually coming back to earth. And who cares if they could never recapture the magic again? This album remains as good now as it was back then (and as unique — even now there’s no one that quite sounds like this, capturing their fusion of electro energy and aggressive, danceable riffs.) It is 30 minutes of power — Depeche Mode with an axe to grind or a NIN that just wants to dance amidst the darkness. It’s awesome, even now.
I remember finding out about these guys through a girl my roommate was in love with at the time. She was beautiful — face-meltingly so, and she knew it — and she was cool, too, plugged into the myriad scenes and bands, so we always hit it off. She would toy with my roommate, giving him the slightest signals of interest (or allowing benign ones to be misinterpreted) before crushing his hopes again and so I spent a ton of time hearing from (and mediating for) both sides that year. Aside from the endless conversations about unrequited (/non-existent) love were chats about music, and this was one of her favorite albums at the time.
She was obsessed with it — much like my roommate with her — and her enthusiasm was what got me to check it out. I’d never seen anyone this attractive get this excited about anything that wasn’t materialistic nonsense (or themselves) so had to find out what was up. (Truth be told I also had a bit of a thing for her by this point, so probably thought if I ended up digging them maybe she’d focus some of that exuberance on me.) Long story short, I did love the album, she did not love me (or my roommate), and more Fleetwood Mac-style drama than is worth remembering ensued. At the end of the day I didn’t care — she’d turned me on to this album, which I still love 20 years later.
The main change from the previous album to this (aside from the frenzied support of the press now being on them) was the addition of a metal guitarist and that seemed to be the piece needed to have everything snap into place. The songs hit hard like a metal song should, only laced with synths and drum machines this time around. Tracks like “Glass Danse,” “Let the Poison Spill from Your Throat,” and “Your Retro Career Melted” are great, as is the opening “Agenda Suicide.” It’s a blistering nine song, 35 minute outing that’s over before you realize you’re out of breath.
“Posed to Death” has always been one of my faves — check it out here:
We’ll end where we started — the sun-soaked shores of California — only five years further on from our last set of acts. In terms of history we’re five years beyond The Big Bang now — the Strokes have released both their excellent sophomore album and their underwhelming third, and would go on hiatus shortly thereafter, not releasing another album for five years. (“Rock is dead!”) The boom/bust cycle of Next Big Things they spawned had largely ground to a halt and music writ large had turned its eyes away from guitar-based bands. (“ROCK IS DEAD!”) In lieu of leatherbound axe wielders, the cultural focus had shifted to the bling and beats of the Neptunes and Timbaland and hip-swiveling songs from overseas artists like Shakira and Nelly Furtado.
As a result, most folks didn’t care about a little debut from a bunch of Smashing Pumpkins inspired kids from Los Angeles — the outstanding Carnavas from Silversun Pickups, which turns 15 this month — but I sure did. I first fell for it because of the influences — growing up in Chicago, Billy Corgan went to the high school in the town next to mine and their music was EVERYWHERE after they got going. I didn’t realize for years that it wasn’t like that for everyone, that most folks didn’t get to them until Siamese or Mellon Collie blew up — but by this time the Pumpkins had been broken up for nearly six years, having traded their fiery guitar parts for the electro-infused elements of Adore before they did.
So as someone who loved the boom of garage/guitar-based bands that The Big Bang spawned, I was thirsting for some riffs at this point, having walked several years in the desert without a ton to drink. Enter the Silversuns and their excellent debut, which not only satiated on the Pumpkins front, but the rock one writ large too. The influences were clear and unapologetic — tons of thick riffs, big, thudding drums, plenty of fist-pumping anthems, even frontman Brian Aubert’s high-pitched voice mirrored Billy’s — but they executed them flawlessly.
As with the others noted above, it’s held up to years of listens and still rocks — tracks like “Lazy Eye” and “Future Foe Scenarios” are bangers, while “Rusted Wheel” and “Melatonin” show the band’s more psychedelic side. Aside from the years of enjoyment it’s given, one of the most lasting memories I have of this album came a couple years further down the road, on New Year’s Eve back home in Chicago. We were doing a more subdued dinner party version at my buddy’s house and as we waited for it to get closer to midnight he asked whether we wanted to play Rock Band.
I’d never played, but had heard about it and the concept sounded entertaining. I started on the guitar and it was fun, racking up points for matching riffs like Sonic gobbling up gold coins, but it was a little too unrealistic to get into. (Even my rudimentary (read: terrible) guitar skills found the fake fingering of chords too incomplete to geek out.) It wasn’t until my turn on the drums that I fell in love. My buddy had the whole plastic kit — with the cymbals and the double pedal for the kick and hi hat — and I distinctly remember something primal in my brain snapping into place as we did a couple songs. We started with a few of the easier ones — Eye of the Tiger, Go Your Own Way, etc — but it wasn’t until we did the Silversuns that my brain broke.
The song was “Well Thought out Twinkles” and it was when I decided “I’m gonna teach myself how to play drums.” Its heavy use of the kick drum, its tricky (but oh so satisfying) fills, its furious conclusion — I already loved the song, having listened to it for years at that point, but now I loved it on a whole other level. My calf hurt from trying to keep up with the kick, I was out of breath from trying to keep up, and the connection in my brain hadn’t quite figured out how to get both hands working in sync with my feet (that would take many months of practice to forge), but I was determined to master it.
The rest of my party, however, was not. My buddy, Sig O, and others had had enough and slowly drifted away from the game. I, however, spent the next hour or two (and probably most of a third) nerding out in the corner playing drums by myself like some lunatic Muppet. I missed the ball drop, giving a distracted side kiss to my Sig O (“what? Oh yeah yeah Happy New Years to you too! Lemme…..get back to……just gotta……..oh man that fill, how the heck did they do that….”) while I kept flailing along to the songs. Eventually we left (I think my buddy turned the lights off and said “OK — GTFO”) but a new obsession had been born.
I played the game ENDLESSLY for the coming months, so much so that I had to continually repair the plastic kit because I was hitting it so hard/playing it so often. I tore through the skins on all the drum heads, broke all of the cymbals (both the plates themselves and the stands they attached to the kit with), even the basic frame had to be propped up with cinderblocks because it kept collapsing onto my knees when I played. By the end there was enough duct tape, bolted on plastic, and other “enhancements” that it looked like an amateur art project. (Or reject from some Mad Max remake.) (FYI — CD-Rs that had been broken in half are the perfect size/shape to fix cracked cymbals! Just in case you’re wondering how to fix your own…)
Eventually I did master that song (and geezus it felt good — still remember that, too), along with several others of theirs. (Minus one part of “Panic Switch” that I could never quite get, which was when I finally realized “Holy sh#$ — their drummer is a lefty! No wonder I can’t get my hands to go that way — his kit’s setup backwards!” A point I confirmed by watching a live performance before fully letting my obsessive completionist brain off the hook.) Eventually I had to buy a real kit, too, because I’d so thoroughly destroyed the plastic one (even my repairs needed repairs by the end), but it never was the same again. (Not being able to play with the game really sucked the wind out of my sails, as a drummer playing by himself is almost as sad a sight as a doused kitten or those Sarah McLachlan commercials on TV.)
It didn’t matter by that point, though, my love for drumming — and this album — had been cemented as solidly as that makeshift base. Still remain, in fact — no duct tape or plastic reinforcements necessary. Give another fave — the blissful “Three Seed” — a listen here:
We’ll close with a couple quick hits that’ve been stuck in the backlog — first the lead single from the recent EP by Kevin Devine, No One’s Waiting up for me Tonight. I keep meaning to dive into this one, so hopefully this will be the necessary nudge. It’s a really pretty tune — check out “Lakes on the Moon” here:
Next comes one of the many treats from the recent George Harrison box set for the 50th anniversary of his already sprawling solo debut All Things Must Pass. It was one of a handful of tracks that didn’t make the final album, remaining in demo form for all these years. When you hear it you’ll wonder why, as it sports an instantly winning melody. As good a reason as any to check out that classic debut — recorded while the embers of the Beatles empire were still smoldering. Check out “Cosmic Empire” here:
We’ll close with a dancer, the latest from Germany’s Boys Noize, whose upcoming album +/- comes out in September. His stuff is always sort of hit or miss for me (particularly live), but when it clicks it hits oh so nicely. As on this track, “Nude” — check it out here:
That’s it for now — I posted a little recap of our trip to Asheville in the “I’ve Been Everywhere” section for you to peruse and maybe inspire your own trip, too (as if this wasn’t enough rambling to tide you over for the next 6-8 months). Until next time, amici…
–BS